Social Security Administration (New York, New York)

Nelson was hired as a design consultant by the Social Security Administration. His assignment was to improve the work flow in its local offices, where citizens had to register for social security. The study related to all the administration's forms, at a time when the entire operation was switching to electronic data processing.

The outcome of his work was nine graphic standards for publications and forms. A fundamental finding of the study was that changing the language to be more understandable was of most benefit to users.